Stenciled Valentine Wall Hanging

Getting ready for Valentine's Day here—in the middle of Ohio's deep freeze!! I like to make my paper outside, but that's out of the question with the weather we've been having. So, when I looked for pink handmade paper in my stash for a Valentine project, I was disappointed to find that I'd used it all. But, I did find some lovely white paper, and I decided to make it make it a Valentine color with a stencil.

I used my Zing electronic cutting machine to cut my stencil out of acetate. The stencil pattern was a free downloadable file from Bird's Cards.

I needed my paper to be smaller than the original piece. I also wanted to retain the soft, irregular deckled edges, so I painted a line of water along what would be my cut lines, and gentle pulled the paper apart.

Here's my paper and stencil in my cardboard box spray booth, ready to be misted. 

I tried several colors of misting spray, but LuminArte's Ginger Flower Radiant Rain Shimmering Mist turned out to be my favorite. Here you can see how the purple mist looked. I washed the stencil between each color, so there wouldn't be contamination from one color to the next.

For the frame I used this very shallow wooden box. I used the same pink mist as paint to color it. When it was dry I oversprayed it with Perfect Pearls Mist. 

I adhered the misted handmade paper to the frame using PPA, an acrylic medium. I painted the entire surface where the paper would contact the frame, and gently brayered the paper in place. 

I wanted the handmade paper to be the star of this piece, so when adding the finishing touches of wooden tile letters, paper flower, and bling, I kept most of the paper exposed. A ribbon hanger completed my Valentine wall hanging.

Use coupon code Two20 to get a 20% discount on your order from Arnold Grummer's.

Carole